


midnight city

by s_coups



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation AU, can't believe there's no tag for ahyeon smh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_coups/pseuds/s_coups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>seunghoon has died with jinwoo so many, many times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	midnight city

**Author's Note:**

> written to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o0_q89IqVc) by the 1975, so you can listen as you read.

The earliest memory Seunghoon has of this boy is flowers. Hundreds and hundreds of flowers, all different sizes and shapes and colors. Pinks and purples and yellows and oranges and blues and reds and whites and every color Seunghoon can think of, surrounding this boy like some sort of nostalgic, faded film, filling the room to the brim in pots and vases and mugs and hanging from the ceiling. And there’s this boy, standing against them, smiling at Seunghoon, hands full of big, blooming purple lilacs.  
  
“Lilacs represent first love,” The boy had once explained to Seunghoon in that same room of flowers. The sun was always shining there, and it was always warm but not too warm. It was comfortable. Seunghoon was comfortable. He was always comfortable with this boy.  
  
“I thought roses represented love,” Seunghoon had said. There were lots of roses in the room, many different colors, but Seunghoon barely spared them a glance when this boy was there. He glowed more than any rose could.  
  
“Roses represent true love,” The boy had explained. He’d risen out of his chair and plucked a few red roses from their vase, slipped them into the bouquet of lilacs he had Seunghoon holding in his too-big hands. “Both of them together is eternal love.”  
  
Seunghoon nods, watches the boy smile softly at the flowers like they’re his own children.  
  
Seunghoon loves this boy, and this boy loves flowers, so Seunghoon loves flowers too.

 

  
  
“I'm tired,” Seunghoon mumbles over his double espresso. The smell alone was enough to wake him up, but not enough so that the almost painfully realistic dreams he kept experiencing in his sleep disappeared, or even wavered at all, from his thoughts.  
  
“You're always tired,” Taehyun comments, half listening, eyes glued to his phone while taking periodic, timed sips of his black coffee.  
  
“And you never listen,” Seunghoon grumbles to himself, and Taehyun’s eyes flicker up at that. He sighs, setting his phone down.  
  
“What do you want me to say?” Taehyun asks, and he sounds frustrated. Seunghoon can relate. “I can't make your dreams go away.”  
  
“Nothing helps,” Seunghoon complains. His eyes are starting to sting slightly, and his throat is closing up, just like it does every time they have this conversation. And every time he wakes up. “My therapist won't even give me sleeping pills because she thinks they'll just make them worse.”  
  
Taehyun just frowns at him, something akin to pity in his eyes.  
  


  
  
Seunghoon sees the boy skipping rocks one day at the lake down the road from his house. He joins him without saying anything, picking up a stone and tossing it into the water. It sinks immediately, and the boy tries not to laugh as Seunghoon huffs and puts down his bag to pick up a flatter rock and try again.  
  
They stay skipping rocks in silence for awhile, until the sun is setting and the horizon is cast in a warm orange glow. Seunghoon can skip his rocks once, now, but it's not as impressive as the boy, who can skip his almost across the lake.  
  
It's at this moment, watching him concentrate so intently on tossing rocks at water, touched by the sunset, Seunghoon feels the incredibly undeniable urge to kiss him.  
  
So he does.  
  


  
  
Things feel like they’re moving in slow motion when Seunghoon cracks open his eyes and looks up at the sky. Ash is raining down on him like snow, and his whole body aches. He can’t hear much at first, everything muted, but slowly it starts to come to. First the shouting of people, screaming. Then the police sirens. Cars honking, and something dripping. Drip, drip, drip.  
  
“Seunghoon,” Someone breathes out, and Seunghoon has to use all his strength to tilt his head to the side. That boy is there, that boy from the room of flowers, and suddenly everything hits him. It’s like he has an out of body experience, his mind drifting just above them to take in the car wreckage they were both lying in, the crowd looking over the yellow Do Not Cross tape and the ambulance sirens getting closer. He’s real. He’s real. The boy is real, and Seunghoon knows him, feels like he could reach out and grab him but can’t because of the heaviness the waves and waves of memories crashing over him are causing, making his bones weigh down like bricks.  
  
“You’re here,” The boy whispers, and his eyes are filling with tears. “You’re real.”  
  
There’s blood pooling around the boy’s head, his face cut up completely and his arm crooked in a way that’s definitely not natural. Seunghoon tries to respond, wants desperately to respond, but he thinks his lungs are filling with blood, and everything hurts. It’s at that moment he realizes the dripping noise is from him, from his mouth, blood slowly but steadily dripping out past his lips and onto the concrete. When he tries to open his mouth to reply, only blood spills out. Drip, drip, drip.  
  
“Seunghoon,” The boy says again, and he’s starting to cry now, and Seunghoon wishes so vehemently that he could comfort him, reach out to him, or even just ask for the boy's name, because he can’t remember it but he feels it on the tip of his tongue, yearns so deeply to speak it. Something bittersweet washes over him as memories come flooding back. This boy with flowers, this boy on a boat, this boy in Seunghoon’s arms. This boy smiling at him, beautifully, shining brighter than the sun to the point Seunghoon has to cover his eyes, but doesn’t dare let go of his hand, no, he would never let go.  
  
Drip. Drip. Drip. Seunghoon’s vision is starting to blur. His hearing goes before his vision, and he can just vaguely make out the boy saying, “my fairy-tale,” before things start getting muted again.  
  
  
~  
  
  
This boy looks most beautiful in the early morning, on the cusp of dawn, when the sun and the moon meet in the sky and dance with the stars and tint the sky light blues and purples and pinks. This boy looks most beautiful against Seunghoon’s sheets, smooth skin against crisp white sheets, sleeping on his stomach with his hand under his cheek.  
  
Seunghoon traces his finger down the boy's spine, follows the curve with his index finger to the base and back up. The boy mumbles nonsense at him, gropes for Seunghoon’s hand, tries to get him to stop. Seunghoon just laughs.  
  


  
  
“Maybe you should talk to someone about these dreams,” Seungyoon suggests, one night, while he sizzles chicken in a pan and Seunghoon sits on the counter, staring at his swinging feet.  
  
“I'm not crazy,” Seunghoon says defensively.  
  
“I didn't say you were. Not everyone who sees therapists are crazy,” Seungyoon sprinkles something into the pan, and it sizzles louder, the smell reaching Seunghoon’s nose and making him feel like he's home. Comforting.  
  
“They just make me sad,” Seunghoon whispers. He picks at the hole in his sweatshirt to avoid eye contact with the elder. “They make me miss him.”  
  
Seungyoon raises an eyebrow, but sounds genuinely concerned when he asks, “Miss him? You've never met him.”  
  
“I feel like I have.”  
  


  
  
The boy climbs into his bed one night, wraps his limbs around Seunghoon like he's a pillow and cries into his collarbones over how much he loves him. Seunghoon strokes his hair and hushes him, and it takes half an hour to calm him down.  
  
“You'll never leave me, right?” The boy whispers once he's finished sniffling, and Seunghoon nods immediately.  
  
“Never.”  
  
“What if we grow old and one of us goes to heaven first? Will you wait for me?”  
  
“What if I don't go to heaven?” Seunghoon asks teasingly. He wipes the boys cheeks with his thumbs to rid him of the last of his tears. “What if I get reborn into another person?”  
  
“You'll have to wait for me,” The boy says stubbornly “You’ll have to wait for me to be reborn, too.”  
  
Seunghoon just laughs, murmurs, “You're crazy. Go to sleep,” against his forehead.  
  


  
  
Seunghoon is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
He’s cashing a check with a teller when he hears gunshots, and people start screaming. Someone is shouting for everyone to get down, and Seunghoon drops to the floor, covering his head with his arms. Two people in black ski masks, armed with large guns pass him to the teller, and the barrel of one of their guns brushes Seunghoon’s shoulder. He holds his breath, heart pounding in his chest.  
  
He peeks through his arms a few minutes later, and another person in a mask is keeping all the witnesses in order, making sure everyone's on the floor and not moving. Seunghoon scans everyone. A woman and her son cowered by the chairs, three businessmen in their pristine suits, laying on the ground, faces red, and-  
  
that boy. On the floor across from Seunghoon, beside the table with account brochures and a vase of lilies. He’s got a newsboy cap on and his hair is lighter, now, Seunghoon knows it's new because last time it was black, when they both laid on concrete and Seunghoon’s mouth wouldn't stop bleeding. The boy's bottom lip is trembling and his eyes are glassy as he watches the man in the mask, eyeing the gun with terror. Seunghoon wants to comfort him, wants to tell him it's okay, they'll be okay, Seunghoon’s here. He's here.  
  
Seunghoon scrambles to get up in his sudden haste to get to the boy, rising to his feet in what feels like slow motion, because time was too slow when he hadn't seen this boy in lifetimes and he just wanted the boy to recognize him too. Vaguely, he hears the men in masks shouting at him to get down, cursing. All the people on the floor look at him, including the boy, whose face changes in an almost comical way from terrified to recognition within a few seconds as it seems to dawn him. He clambers to his feet as well, and as he does gunshots ring loudly in Seunghoon’s ears, slicing through whatever little bubble the two of them had created in just the half a minute they had with each other, or had to recognize each other, because this wasn't being with each other, and as Seunghoon feels a searing pain just between his third and fourth rib the boy says, very clearly, “Seunghoon.”  
  
Another gunshot goes off, and another, and this time one of them hits the boy in the side of the head. The other hits Seunghoon in the thigh. They both go down at the same time, but the boy is dead before he hits the ground. Unlike Seunghoon, who just watches the light drain from the boy's eyes as he lays there, wondering if there was a God, because if there was one Seunghoon believes he's certainly gone now. No God would make two people suffer so much over so many lifetimes.  
  
  
~  
  
  
“I love you,” This boy whispers against Seunghoon’s skin. He's climbed into Seunghoon’s lap, smelling of gin, hair tousled and shirt unbuttoned slightly. He smiles big against Seunghoon’s cheek, presses a kiss to it. “Love you.”  
  
“I love you, too,” Seunghoon’s replies, resting his hands on the boy's hips. They're at someone else's house, and it's Christmas, decorations glittering from every corner and something soft and smooth playing from the radio. It's late, everyone pleasantly drunk by now, the quiet buzz of conversation and the warm weight of this boy in his lap making Seunghoon sleepy. They sit in silence for a few moments, the boy resting his head in the crook of Seunghoon’s neck. He fits there perfectly, and Seunghoon can't help but compare them to puzzle pieces.  
  
“I swear,” This boy whispers, quietly, softly, voice shaking, and Seunghoon can't tell if it's from the alcohol or the weight of his own words, “That I have never loved before as I love you, with such tenderness, to the point of tears, and with such a sense of radiance.”  
  
Seunghoon takes the boy's left hand up to his mouth and kisses his knuckles, admires the way the gold band around his ring finger shines with the engraving, “my fairy-tale”.

  
  
  
“Maybe they're not dreams,” Mino says thoughtfully, mouth half full of instant ramen.  
  
Seunghoon looks up from his own cup, eyebrow raised. “What? You mean like… visions or something?”  
  
“Memories,” Mino corrects, tapping his own head with a chopstick. “Maybe they're memories from an old life.”  
  
Seunghoon snorts so hard he accidentally chokes on a noodle.  
  
“You don't think so?” Mino asks. He purses his lips, looking like he's deep in thought. “I think it's possible. You say these dreams are almost realistic. And you remember all the details so vividly. Most people can't remember their dreams after waking up.”  
  
Seunghoon stares down into his ramen. Memories? He thinks to himself. Was this boy a memory?  
  
He shakes his head, pushes the thought away and doesn't think about it again. Mino’s already switched topics.  
  


  
  
There’s a child they have, Seunghoon can never make out if it’s theirs or someone else's. Maybe the boys sisters, but the child is always with them, the boy running after her and laughing, carrying her on his hip and feeding her spoonfuls of his dinner when Seunghoon isn’t looking.  
  
Seunghoon is putting her to sleep one night, sitting in a rocking chair in her room, humming half to himself and half to her. She’s already fast asleep, drooling on Seunghoon’s chest since she refuses to fall asleep anywhere but his arms. Seunghoon blinks sleepily, trying to motivate himself to get up and not just fall asleep here for the fourth time this week. He ultimately gives up, and lets his eyes slip shut.  
  
When he opens them, the boy is standing in the doorway, watching him with a smile. Seunghoon yawns, stretches his legs carefully without adjusting the little girl.  
  
“What are you doing?” Seunghoon mumbles tiredly.  
  
“You look cute,” The boy says, still smiling. “You look like a single dad. It fits you.”  
  
“Single?” Seunghoon snorts. “I’m single now?”  
  
The boy huffs. “I said you look like it. Don’t think it’s gonna be a reality. I’m not leaving you two.”  
  
The boy turns and walks off, grumbling. Seunghoon just grins, after him, feels something in his chest that makes it ache in a way he never wants to go away.  
  


  
  
Fire burns in a way Seunghoon can't quite explain.  
  
He’s woken roughly by Mino, the younger shaking him away violently, shouting. The first thing he notices is smoke in the air, and then Mino’s words become clearer as consciousness comes to him.  
  
“Hoon, wake up, the buildings on fire,” Mino says in a strangely calm voice. “We have to go, now.”  
  
Seunghoon scrambles to his feet, trying to find his slippers. He spots Mino scooping Haute up into his arms in the living room, and as he’s pulling his left slipper on Mino yells, “Seunghoon! Now!”  
  
Seunghoon almost trips over the couch trying to run after him. The hallway is even worse, thick with smoke to the point it was hard to see. Seunghoon pulls his shirt over his nose, coughing. He can barely make out Mino just ahead of him, the younger’s shirt bulging out from where he’d hidden Haute under it.  
  
They’re about halfway down the staircase, around the sixth floor when something seems to explode. Seunghoon isn’t sure what it is, because suddenly he’s thrown back by the force, tossed against the wall. He hears something crumbling and collapsing, the staircase above him he thinks, and Mino shouting somewhere far off, but the smoke and debris is too much for him to see anything or even breathe at this point. He coughs violently, his lungs hurting, and when he tries to move his left leg suddenly lights up with pain, making him yell out loud. He glances behind him, and a whole row of stairs is on top of it, concrete and everything.  
  
An almost scary sereness settles over him as he realizes he’s trapped, and was most likely going to die. He doesn’t know what floor the fire is on, but he thinks it’s close, because he can hear people screaming.  
  
The debris is clearing, settling so only the smoke hangs thickly in the air, and when it does Seunghoon spots someone else a few feet off. They’re not stuck under the stairs, or unable to move, but they’re just lying there, face down, and Seunghoon vaguely wonders if they’re dead. But then they shift, and raise their head, and it’s  
  
that boy. His face is almost unrecognizable from the blood on it, dripping from a huge wound on his forehead, but it’s him, Seunghoon knows it is. He would recognize him anywhere, anytime.  
  
Things start to come back to Seunghoon, memories flooding through his mind in an almost incapacitating way. And once again, he so desperately wants to call out, but the boy’s name won’t come to him. It’s on the tip of his tongue, just barely there, it’s so close Seunghoon can taste it. His eyes sting with tears, and he can’t think of anything else to say, can’t think of how else to call the boy. The boy is alive, more alive than the last time Seunghoon saw him, which was on the floor of a bank, eyes blank and blood pooling around his head. And there was blood pooling around his head this time, too, but he was still alive, and he meets eyes with Seunghoon and his face suddenly lights up.  
  
The boy opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, and instead blood just comes out, and it gives Seunghoon painfully vivid flashbacks of when only blood came out of his own mouth, that time they both lay in the midst of a car wreckage.  
  
The boy coughs once, twice, and just as he collapses, head hitting the ground with a dull thud, and all Seunghoon can do is cry, lungs filling up with smoke.  
  
  
~  
  
  
“Twelve fifty for a matinee,” Ahyeon complains. “Who do they think they are? It wasn’t even a good show!”  
  
“So, you still went to see it?” Seunghoon, asks, amused. They’re walking along the shops at night, the street abuzz despite the late hour. Ahyeon’s got on the red dress Seunghoon likes, and her smile is more brilliant than the stars (probably. Seunghoon has never actually seen a lot of stars because of the city’s light pollution).  
  
“Of course not, but I saw the theater department put it on when I was in college,” Ahyeon sniffs. “And it was not as good as everyone says it is.”  
  
“I’ll trust you on that,” Seunghoon replies, and almost trips when Ahyeon suddenly stops short.  
  
“Hoon, look at this flower shop!” She suddenly says, eyes glued to the window display of a florists shop. Hundreds of roses fill up the window, all different colors, pinks and purples and yellows and reds. “Oh, my God, it’s so pretty… let’s go in.”  
  
“It’s so late,” Seunghoon mutters, but follows her through the door when she runs in ahead of him, bell chiming as he enters. He hears the shop owner say a greeting to Ahyeon, and her start babbling off to him about their wedding and bouquets. Seunghoon smiles to himself, starts walking through the rows and rows of flowers, so tall they almost touch the ceiling. He passes by bleeding hearts, chrysanthemum, baby’s breath, and lilacs. His heart twists up beside the lilacs, and he blames it on the new restaurant they ate at for dinner.  
  
He reaches a small table at the end of one of the rows, full of cards and letters to go along with the bouquets, and even a book of poems. He flips through the book haphazardly, until one of them catches his eye, a short one in the middle. He reads it three times over, frowning.

  
_My fairy-tale. I swear that I have never loved before as I love you, with such tenderness, to the point of tears, and with such a sense of radiance.  
-Vladimir Nabokov, from his novel of letters to his wife Vera._  


  
Seunghoon’s chest tightens suddenly, and he grips the table. He stares at the book, vision blurring, and his ears suddenly hone in on the shop keeper talking to Ahyeon. High, sweet voice, a laugh that sounds like bells tinkling. He turns on his heel, moves so fast through the aisles towards the voice he knocks a few daisies out of place.

He rounds the corner and yes, there he is. And he stops talking when he spots Seunghoon, cuts his words short, eyes widening, looking stunned for a second. Seunghoon just stares at him, heart pounding. The air is thick, both of them not daring to breathe. He looks good, better then all the other times Seunghoon had seen him. He looks like he does in Seunghoon’s dream, beautiful and radiant and holding flowers, face bright and clean and not covered in blood.

Suddenly, Ahyeon clears her throat, and both of them are snapped out of their trance.

“This is my fiancé, Seunghoon,” Ahyeon says slowly, glancing between the two of them. “Do you know each other?”

“No,” The boy says quickly. He steps forward, offering his hand. Seunghoon stares at it. “Nice to meet you, I’m Jinwoo.”

Jinwoo. The name rings through Seunghoon’s head, and suddenly he has a name for him, a name for all the memories. Jinwoo holding flowers, Jinwoo skipping stones, Jinwoo kissing him and reciting poetry drunk, Jinwoo running around their apartment with their little girl, Jinwoo in bed in the morning, Jinwoo, Jinwoo, Jinwoo.

Jinwoo calling for him in the car wreckage. Jinwoo falling to the ground in the bank, bullet going straight through his skull. Jinwoo bleeding in their apartment building, fire burning around them.

Seunghoon tries to compose himself, wipes his hand on his jeans before taking Jinwoo’s hand. Electric currents run between them when they touch, and Seunghoon can see Jinwoo struggling not to react as well in front of Ahyeon.

“Jinwoo was telling me freesia are good for bouquets,” Ahyeon starts explaining. “So, I’m gonna put an order in for those after we look around more.”

Seunghoon nods, eyes still on Jinwoo. Jinwoo looks like it physically pains him as he tears his eyes away from Seunghoon and turns back to Ahyeon, a smile that looks distressing on his face.

“They go with any dress,” He says slowly. “I’m sure you’ll look beautiful with them.”

Ahyeon beams. Jinwoo tries to smile back at her. Seunghoon just stares, trying not to let his hands shake.

They leave after Jinwoo wraps them a sample of freesia, and Seunghoon can see the elder’s hands trembling. Ahyeon is chatting away to Seunghoon about the wedding, face bright, and all Seunghoon can do is nod. As they leave, Seunghoon lingers behind in the doorway, looking over at where Jinwoo is standing beside the lilacs.

“It was nice seeing you,” Seunghoon mumbles, and he can’t take his eyes off the other boy’s face.

Jinwoo smiles at him, but his eyes look so, so sad, and Seunghoon can feel his heart breaking. “It was nice seeing you too, my fairy-tale.”

Seunghoon turns and leaves before he can start crying, the bells chiming in his wake.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @ballerinaten


End file.
